Pages

Categories

December 11, 2015

How Snap Judgments can be Misguided

I have
published a book, so I know how important the covers are. People assume that a
quick glance will tell a potential buyer everything they need to know about a
particular book. They also suppose that the novel should be interesting if the
cover is.

This is not
always true, of course. Some sloppy
books have nice covers. On the other hand, I have seen uninteresting covers on
quality books. The value of the interior of any given book cannot always be
determined by looking at the outside of the book for a few seconds, but people insist
on trying. That’s why authors may agonize for hours over everything related to
the cover. Been there. Done that.

To my mind,
we must question the efficiency of snap judgments. How accurately can you judge something that may
take hours to grasp by a two-second glance?
Not so much. I think potential buyers make quite a few assumptions. They
do this because of time constraints.

The content
of my self-help manual has remained the same. However, some readers might be
more inclined to purchase my work if they see the newer cover. It pops. It
makes you want to read more. Right? (Hint! Hint!)

Alright.
That’s enough of an extended analogy, and a plug for my book. Let’s move on to
judging people by their exteriors.
One person in particular…

Ulysses S. Grant

This man is
a towering figure in U.S. history. Here’s what most school children know:

18th
President of the United States

4-star
general

Commanding
General of the Union Army for the last part of the Civil War

I learned
some facts that we don’t learn in
school from this educational series. Grant was underestimated (judged by his
cover) in many ways. Here are two examples:

He was an
expert equestrian, and almost a horse whisperer, from his childhood. At the age
of 11, his father insisted that he try to ride a circus horse that “could not
be tamed”. He succeeded. The horse couldn’t buck him off. The owner of the act
was furious, so he put a monkey on the horse to distract it. Grant still kept
his seat on the horse. Who would expect such skill in a pre-teen?

His height
wasn’t so towering. Grant was only 5’1”. (Who knew?!) He was bullied even at West
Point Military Academy. An aggressor beat him three times. However, Grant
practiced his skills. He also studied the strengths and weaknesses of the other
young man. When the two fought for the fourth time, Grant won. That guy never
bothered him again.

My Conclusion

Naturally,
there are plenty of quotes outside the Bible about going beyond appearances. Here
are a few that I found through Google Images:

“Don’t judge a book by
it cover. It’s what’s inside that counts.”

************

“Judging a person does
not define who they are. It defines who you are.”